


The leap of faith

by real_fanta_sea



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Ending B, Feels, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Kissing, Light Petting, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, M/M, Post-Ludendorff, Pre- Ludendorff, Regret, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/real_fanta_sea/pseuds/real_fanta_sea
Summary: Have you ever wondered what went through Michael De Santa's head when he fell to his death in "The Time's come"?
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	The leap of faith

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)  
> This fic has been laying around in my drafts for almost a year, and I found it a perfect project to finish for Michael Appreciation Week on Tumblr.
> 
> As you can see in tags, this fic is rather emotionally heavy (or so think, see for yourself :) ) Given the fact this is ending B, there won't be a happy ending - sorry for that! Maybe next time ;)  
> Anyway - buckle up for a trippy ride I hope you'll enjoy :)

The thunder rumbles through the air, vibrating everything in a deep and untamed matter.  
“Michael! Let’s just-”   
Michael looks up, trying his best to look tough while somewhere deep inside, he is scared shitless as the same thunder echoes through him. He’s holding desperately, palms sweaty, onto his life. Franklin, holding his forearm as hard as he can, let his mouth gape open in a shock. Finally, a true, fucking human emotion.  
A few heavy, ice-cold raindrops dampen Michael’s forehead. This all feels too familiar, he thinks to himself. This time, though, he won’t wake up with a jerk, sweat pearling up on his back. This time, there won’t be anything else than a void, sucking him in. He won’t stare back at steel grey sky as it dissolves into his perfect white bedroom ceiling. Not this time.

Another lightning illuminates his final scenery. Michael peers at depth down below his feet and then back up to a familiar face. Franklin fights with himself - he can see it in his sharp sculpted face. The rain falls heavily now and drenches his cheeks, and the moist reflects red and white signal light high above their heads. How the hell did he end up this way? Here, up above his concrete grave? Up here, hanging down the chimney railing, with this snake of a friend being his last straw between life and death? And then, the sudden realisation washed over him like a cold tide. And then, without a blink or a second thought, he lets go. A pair of hazel eyes, troubled, terrified, torn and lost, sink down into darkness. “I won’t leave you, Mikey!” is a distant echo of a raspy, terrified voice in between the rain and thunder. “I won’t leave you, Mikey!” A fraction of a grin passes Michael’s lips “But hell was I more than ready to leave you…” is his last thought as he lets go and let the gravity pull him down.

“MICHAEL!”

The world slows down with the first agonizing beat of his heart. Raindrops around him freeze in place, fire red and shiny like a scattered bloody diamonds carrying his weight. A flash of lightning illuminates the terrified face above him, hand outstretched, desperately trying to reach for him but also knowing damn well it’s too late. Michael looks around him. Everything perfectly sharp and visible, tinted scarlet and blue, with every edge glowing wildly. The weightless eternity of his existence, just hanging above the ground in between his heartbeats.

Ba-dum

A flash of bright white light blinds him for a second before he realizes where he is. The smell of an old truck, speeding on a dirt road is something hard to forget, especially when the smell attacks his nostrils so violently through an open window. Michael looks around him. The insides of the truck are darkened against the painfully bright sun reflecting the crisp green and warm ochre outside. The fuel tank is almost empty, the gas pedal glued to the floor. A photo of a nameless naked girl printed on a car scent card, swaying in a breeze under the passenger seat. Plush dice furiously swinging from side to side on the rearview mirror. All of this is oddly familiar.  
Michael dares a look in the rearview mirror. He stares into a pair of bright blue eyes, full of determination and perhaps a bit of fear. He could swear he knows them too. A strand of dark hair combed back neatly, falls down to them, making him blink and swing it right back. He looks at his hands and sees no ring, only a rim of the leather sleeve of his jacket. Inspecting it further, he sees a couple of sewn symbols as it hangs nonchalantly by the sides of his muscular torso. He grins stupidly as his eyes follow lines of muscles sticking up against a tight white fabric of his tank top. He continues to check himself as the engine roars and hot air breaks apart on his windshield. His jeans are as tight as his top, and sneakers just as worn out as they should be to still be called fashionable. “Wow, this can’t be me” he grins as he checks his face in the mirror again. No wrinkles. No worries. No assassins after his ass. Just a pair of bright, ocean blue eyes and a cocky smile of a kid who hardly knows what future lays ahead.

Michael laughs as he pushes the gas even further, stomping on it like a fucking maniac. The engine groans with pain but accelerates anyway. Suddenly, there is a horn ripping apart the perfect memory. Michael looks into a mirror curiously, frowning his perfect eyebrows, a faint wrinkle haunting his forehead. A second truck, with the same roar and even greater speed, emerges from the turn behind him and by the looks of it, the driver is furious with him.  
“Oh shit, here we go again… Just perfect!” he swears below his breath and takes a sharp turn right just as the truck reaches the back of his own vehicle. There is a high pitched screech as the truck turn in top speed, trying it’s best not to fall oven, rolling on only one set of wheels before falling back on all six with an angry thud sound. “I must find the damn plane, it should be around here somewhere, fuck” Michael swears and feels a couple of sweats drops pearl on his forehead. He looks back into the mirror. The truck is behind him. Closing in. There is a familiar shine of a gun in the dark behind the windshield. “FUCK!”  
Another turn. Another screech. Sweat. Curse. Heart racing. Heat. Engine roaring. Plane. Where is the fucking plane?  
Michael literally flies over the top of a ditch as he desperately tries to land the truck on wheels and not on its side. There is a glimpse of shiny metal in the distance suddenly and his heart races. This is it. Just to get there before the jerk gets him. He bites his lip and stomps on the gas again, furiously, desperately. The metal of the plane shines again as he gets closer and he looks for a man he was supposed to meet. Somewhere down in his guts, there is a fear mixing with anticipation and stirring his insides like a bloody blender. He can’t wait to see him and be saved.

A pair of slender jeans-clad legs twitch impatiently in the shadow of the plane. There he is.

If it wasn’t for a fact he could destroy the plane, he would have never braked so hard and just circle around to get the look again and again forever. He could, in fact, do it - this is his memory so he could do whatever he fucking please - but everything feels too real, including the young man leaned back on the wing of the plane.  
Something in his pose is so captivating Michael can not quite put his head around it. The man’s elbows are supporting him, placed on a grey painted wing. Leather aviation jacket with a maple leaf sewn on it, wrinkled on his shoulders which were as wide and strong as his chest showing below his a worn-out t-shirt, yet slender and elegant as the line of his body run down to a perfect waist, accented by a belt of his jeans. One hip slightly raised as he relaxed one of his long legs, probably to even the weight of his heavy boots. Michael inhales deeply and gulped down something that feels almost like… Well, he can’t name it, but the look is captivating. The man looks in direction of the other truck, so Michael has a couple of seconds to study his face. It is framed by a thick mane of brown hair, and aviator shades, too big and dark to see his eyes properly. His nose as sharp as his cheekbones and jawline, with a trace of baby fat still there, giving him a dangerously adorable look. Where Michael loses it are his lips - full and with cupid’s bow curved in a perfectly kissable way, almost unreal for a man to have. Compared to his thin line of a mouth, these lips are angelic. Something deep inside of him awakens with a roar and the feeling of warmth fills him up completely, as he looks at the young man’s face again.

“Trevor…” he hears himself whisper. “T…” as tender as the letter can be, escaping his lips all over again to numb the sharp pain in his chest. What exactly is this feeling? Did he always feel this way about Trevor? Is his dying mind playing tricks on him?

He loses himself in a plump curve of Trevor’s lips for a moment once again before he’s torn from this perfect world with a wild screech of brakes and violent blow of a horn.  
“Come out right NOW!” A hoarse voice calls from the other truck as a middle-aged man does his best to get out of the driver’s seat. Michael caught the sight in the mirror. While he takes a deep breath he kicks the door open and jumps out of the truck.   
“What’s your problem, old fart?” he yells, as cocky as he possibly can to cover how fucking frightened he really is, puffing up his chest, putting up a toothy grin and holding onto his hips to appear larger. “Can’t get it up so you drive all the way here to beat my ass for fun?”. The old man clenches his fists, squaring up his shoulders and cracking his neck. Michael blinks a couple of times as he watches the familiar figure step out of the shadow of the truck. As the man moves closer, Michael’s cocky grin freezes and slowly twists into pure horror. The man raises his head and if there ever was a bit of doubt in who it was, it vanished right into a face of the impaling summer sun.

It’s the older version of him. De Santa part of his soul, peering right back at him through a familiar frown with all the self-hate and beast-like cruelty written all over his wrinkled face. Michael’s mouth opens and closes in a shock. Is this who he has become? He can still remember all the things he did in his life as if his old self got caught up in the young body. He remembers, gets glimpses of memories, but it’s not the same thing as to face who he inevitably grows to be. De Santa looks him in the eyes as if he knows exactly what he is thinking about with an evil grin. As fast as he can, without blinking, De Santa raises his gun and points it right at Trevor.

Michael gasps. “What the fuck are you doing, you prick?”

Trevor flinches and presses his back against the plane with a deep growl.  
“Put that down or I’ll make a pudding out of your brain right fucking now!”, Trevor utters with the only gun he could retrieve from the plane in a second, which, to Michael’s eternal amusement, is a fucking flare gun. De Santa shows a couple of teeth as he grins at Trevor. “The only thing I want is a second to talk to my little friend here. Don’t be stupid, Trevor, and give me a chance to make things right for both of us” The man with a flare gun raises his eyebrows and lowers the gun a few millimetres before raising it again. “Fuck, I don’t know where you heard my name or who snitched it but I swear to god if you botch this job you won’t see the sun up tomorrow you cake filled fuck face!”

Michael chuckled as he heard Trevor give his older self familiar names. He really let himself go too far to be called fit and made a mental note not to waste his second chance in life to eat the hate away. De Santa seems pleased as well, a heartwarming smile crossing his lips before they are solid and serious again. “Michael, I know what you felt back then, and what you feel now. I know you are going to chase it until you lose interest and leave a broken shell. Wasn’t it your... our favourite pastime after every game? Get a girl, get the most of it for a week and then ditch her without a second thought?” Michael blinks and searches for rusty memories. With eyes wide and lips pursued, he nods. “You see Trevor there? He’s not a stupid cheerleader you can play like a fiddle. Even now, with this badass facade of his, he feels something for you.” Trevor fidgets uncomfortably and Michael catches with a corner of his eye how Trevor swallows and lets his lips part for a second. Fucking Bingo.  
“And you feel it too. That is a serious business, Michael.” De Santa pauses to raise his gun again. “You know what happens in future, don’t you? Say a word and decide - should I kill him and let you forget, get a normal life with normal wife and normal kids, the one you’ve always wanted…” he pauses to turn to Michael now, who instinctively raises his hands and stumbles a couple of steps back with a gun pointed at him “or should I kill you both to get this Shakespearean shit over with before it even begins? We both know too well what he means to..to us.” Michael exhales and feels the world slow down once more as he watches a tear roll down De Santas expressionless cheek and turns to Trevor. The wind plays with Trevor’s hair and his hands shake as he throws down his shades. A pair of amber eyes, wide with awe, pierce him with the same question. Growing old with or without him? Can he bear living without his precious punk? Can he let all the memories slip right out of his mind and fill it in with a long line of one night stands and even longer lines of coke? Oh, and why does his chest clench so much? Could it be...love?

Michael inhales carefully and turns back to De Santa, with time raging in the normal speed now. “Kill me. You know too well I could never live without him by my side.” A hot blow of wind carries a sound of a trigger, sudden and unforgiving. Michael blinks and watches a flare screw into De Santa’s eye, as he pulls the trigger too. The bullet licks his ear and jams with a hiss into the truck behind him. A high, blood-chilling scream pierce his ears and adds to wild pounding in his ears. Right before his wide eyes, De Santa’s body is fighting inevitable, hands trying to pull the flare out, only to help it dig deeper. Burned flesh and skin shed dreadful black shreds onto the dirt below their feet. Deep grey smoke fills the air with sweet stench and cries right out of hell. And then, silence and a pair of terrified amber eyes, vanishing into another flash of light.

Ba-dum

Michael opens his eyes to see a mouldy ceiling of a random motel, illuminated with a mix of orange, pink and blue neon light splattered across the room. His body feels hot but exhausted at the same time, gradually allowing him to sink back to full consciousness. He looks around, blinking to get rid of heaviness on his eyelids. Stark naked, his skin shiny with sweat, brilliantly white, glowing with reflections of light as a perfect opposite of the damp dark sheets.  
Michael turns to his side, instinctively looking for a pack of cigarettes. He has always had one ready on a nightstand wherever he went and remembers this too well. He has always smoked after sex, he realises with a smug smirk and almost makes it to the pack before a pair of tanned arms wrap around him. A deep “Mikey...don’t leave me” comes from behind him, half snore, half sleep talk. Michael freezes for a second before turning around to make sure the deep, smooth voice belongs to the man he thinks it does.  
Just as he remembered, Trevor stretched his arms in his sleep, for once looking peaceful and even angelic in all his content and innocence. He looks like a child, curled up on his side, hair in his mouth, stuck to open lips with a string of saliva. Eyes shut, barely moving, eyelashes long and shaking to the rhythm of his own light snores. “Mikey” Trevor whimpers again and curls even more, clutching the blanket, brows knotting. “Shh… I am right here,T” Michael whispers, and as gently as he can, brushes the lock of hair out of Trevor’s mouth. Trevor smacks his lips and smiles sincerely from his sleep. “I love you, Mikey...”. Michael jolts a bit but tries his best not to wake his sleeping companion. Was this even the same memory, or is his dying mind making a damn fool of him? Has Trevor actually said that? He blinks a couple of times, supporting himself with his elbow on his side as he brushes Trevor’s cheek absentmindedly with his fingers. With wide, serious eyes, Michael observes the goosebumps on Trevor’s arm, showing with each end every careful stroke of his fingers. Trevor’s snores and low mumble gives him the strength to continue down his neck, fingers outstretched, tracing smooth skin below his fingertips. Trevor moans from his sleep when Michael’s fingers gently brushed past his nipple. “You always had a soft spot here, T” Michael whispers under his breath and let his aching heart rule him for once. All the uneasiness and tense are suddenly gone as his tongue circles around his lover’s chest. The skin below him is salty and hot, and the taste lingers on his tongue, driving him mad. His hand wanders down the outline of Trevor’s body, tracing down his abdomen to find what he is looking for. Trevor’s cock welcomes his hand with a jolly throb and fit into his palm much better than he would ever admit. “Mmm” Trevor moans and arches his back, biting his lower lip “so much for sleeping with a horny cupcake beside me, huh?” and greets Michael with a toothy grin “Ready for round two, pork chop?” Michael chuckles, stroking Trevor slowly but firmly “I was born ready, baby” and let himself be pulled into a kiss.  
The room dissolves around them as Michael seals his lips with Trevors, and some kind of force pulls them both up, right into the star painted indigo sky. His lips desperately caress and sucks Trevor’s and his tongue explore and swirls with a hunger he has never felt before. Just the kiss, just the taste, just the sensation is enough for him to forget who he became, where he belongs and what he was about to do in a couple of years in this reality. It is just his lips and Trevor’s lips under the moonlight and everything feels right in the centre of this universe.

He pulls back eventually, gasping for air, licking his lips frantically not to waste a bit of the heavenly taste of his lover’s lips, fading back to the stained sheets. Trevor pants below him, lips curved into a toothy, genuine smile he has only seen once or twice before. Michael can not help but smile back, cupping Trevor’s cheek with one hand, running his thumb alongside Trevor’s lower lip. Trevor purrs deeply under his touch, staring right back to his eyes. Michael feels something building up around his heart - a heat that could only mean one thing. “I love you too, Trevor” he exhaled, voice deep with honesty. With a smile, he watches the change in Trevor’s expression, eyes dark and wide, mouth open in shock. “What did you just…” Trevor gulped, tears collecting in his eyes as he crawls away from Michael’s touch. Michael’s chest suddenly hurt as if someone squeezed it. “Shh, I mean it - trust me, Trevor. Just trust me, baby, ok?” Michael whispers with a smile still playing around corners of his mouth, but not as certain as it was a second ago. Trevor jerks and jumps of the bed, retrieving slowly towards the window.  
“Why are you always like that, Michael? So fucking full of lies” His voice trembled as much as his knees. Michael’s eyes look his body up and down, and only welcoming part is his dick, twitching, helplessly calling for a fondling hand “Why do you do this to me?”  
Michael blinks a couple of times, trying hard to remember what he did to earn this reaction. As far he knows, this was one of those nights they spent together, drinking or drugging, crawling on top of one or the other, riding the hell out of the high, bodies twisted into a hot, sweating mush. It won’t hurt to ask, right?   
“Trevor, calm down. What the hell happened to you?” his voice firm and certainly more annoyed than he had meant it to be. Trevor puffs up, clenching his fists. “What happened to me? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ME?” Michael stiffens as a shockwave of Trevor’s angered roar washes over him, leaving him speechless.  
“Are you serious? You have a fucking audacity to ask me what happened with that knocked up tramp waiting for you at the altar now? What the fuck am I to you then, huh? Am I just a fun old cheap bitch you fuck after a score? A toy you toss away when it doesn't comfort your taste anymore? Or.. or a dumbass to do all the dirty work for you just for a meaningless fuck?” Trevor’s voice trembles again, but only to gather enough strength to rumble through paper-thin walls again. “I am not stupid, Michael. I can see the pattern. You get high, you tell me you love me, fuck me and then you sober up and get on with your oh so great denial only to do it again and again. You dance around in your pathetic suit pants, killing anyone calling you a faggot! Oh, and while you are at it, you knock up a hooker and marry her just to show everybody you are a good old boobs’n’snatch family guy. Do you want your American dream family with a coke-snorting bitch and a batch of white trash bastards? Well then be my guest and get the fuck out of here, Michael”  
Trevor kicks the door open, spitting his name out with a sting of disgust that lingers in the air long after it is said. A familiar blue haze of Michael’s anger pierces right through him and floods his system. With clenched fists, he springs up. “Okay, whatever, dipshit. Just make sure you are not late tomorrow” is what escapes Michael’s lips, without him even noticing. Something constricts his chest as he pulls up his jeans and throws his t-shirt over his head, facing Trevor. There are wet trails on his cheeks for sure, but something dark creeps behind them. Michael looks up to see two broken mirrors of amber eyes, staring back at him. For once, he feels the urge to fight the memory and stay. Stay a little longer. Cup Trevor’s face in his hands and tell him he won’t ever leave his side. Tell him he means what he said and they should elope, riding scooters hand in hand to the sunset. Trevor’s sob brings him back to reality as he approaches him carefully. “Trevor, I’m sorry…” is the last thing he utters before the memory fades in the familiar explosion of white light.

Ba-dum

Michael blinks as he opens his eyes, looking around. He hardly recognizes the surroundings - judging by the scattered tombstones, people hunched down dressed in black and a thick layer of snow, he is somewhere up north, and on a goddamn cemetery. With all the white around him and heavy snowflakes falling down from a steel-grey sky, he should have been frozen solid at least 15 minutes ago, but somehow, he feels fine. Weightless even. There is something odd in a way people pass him by, without noticing him standing there, walking right onto him “Hey, watch it!” he hisses as an old lady walks right through him, leaving but a swirl of air where an outline of his torso was a second ago. Her sniffs and crunches of fresh snow under her shoes fade out into a deepening silence. She didn’t even notice, did she?  
Michael looks at his hands, terrified. They are... translucent? What the hell happened to him? Is he a ghost? Michael’s eyes widen and his mouth fall open. Did he die already or what? With a deep breath of crisp air, he once again raises his head and scrutinizes his surroundings. His head feels like it might explode with all the wild ideas and questions swirling inside it. Has he ever been here before? The place seems familiar. Why is he here? Is it somehow significant? Michael inspects the closest tombstone on his right and chuckles lowly. Of fucking course. This was his grave. Michael fucking Townley’s grave.  
This is where the boy from the nameless Canadian airfield lays along with his dreams and ambitions, dressed in his old football gear. What’s left is a ghost, a memory, levitating in the air, thinking about what went wrong with his life to end up like this. Hated, hunted, betrayed by a man he considered his son, left by the one he called brother.   
A muffled sob from behind him makes him jump and turn around. A tall man in a stained thick coat looks right trough him and brushes his nose with a hand dressed in an old fingerless glove. Michael stares at him in awe - what the hell is Trevor doing here? If he is right in his assumption and the grave is still too fresh, the place would be swarming with FIB agents, waiting for those stupid enough to come his grave. Michael raises his hands to place them on Trevor’s shaking shoulders, but in his new form, his palms go right trough them only to fall back to each of his side. “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, TREVOR!” He tries as a feeling of panic raises within him. The taller man not even flinch. “TREVOR!!!”  
The only answer he gets is the sound of teardrop crash landing in the snow beneath his feet. It is the first time Michael notices the broken posture and his shaking chin, with a stream of tears flooding it. It is the first time he sees Trevor truly broken. It is the first time he sees what Trevor meant when he told him he loved him.  
“I know you hate it when I’m crying Mikey, but I… I just can’t help it” Trevor uttered in a high, shaky voice. “I’m just so sorry!”. Michael instinctively jumped when Trevor fell to his knees where he would stay if he had a real body, not holding back anymore. “I’m so sorry Mikey! This is all my fault!”  
Even in his current form, Michael’s chest tightened. He has never admitted he hated to see Trevor cry only because it hurts him a great deal, and now with his closest friend kneeling broken on his alleged grave, the pain comes uninvited and sits on his back as heavy as a fucking mountain.   
“If I… If I stayed... if I was the one who helped Brad you could…”  
“No, Trevor. If you stayed, you would be dead. Don’t blame yourself for my fuck ups.”  
“It’s funny, I can almost hear you now, you know?”   
Michael freezes on the spot. Could it be... “Trevor, T, can you hear me?”  
A low chuckle escapes Trevor’s mouth before it is muffled by sobs once again.  
“Yeah, I know, it’s bullshit. Of course, I cannot hear you. I am just imagining things, I guess... I just want to hear your voice once again. I want to hold you and kiss you one last time. Remember that time,” Trevor blows his nose and takes in a deep breath, finally getting a grip of his crying “Remember when we stopped by a lake in the middle of nowhere, and you wanted to go swimming? How we planned to stay for a night but ended up camping for a whole week? I’ve never told you how beautiful you are in the morning light - I just called you a fatso then and you smashed my head with a pan.” Corners of Trevor’s mouth twitch with a shy smile upon the memory. Michael just watches him, desperate to hold him close and never let him go. Of course, he remembers the summer of ‘89 and the glint in those amber eyes whenever they watched him. He remembers the bubbly laughter, flat beer and the smell of campfire in Trevor’s hair when they made love.  
“Remember how we drank so much we started slow dancing at midnight and the sky reflected in your eyes? That was the first time I told you I love you. You laughed and shrugged it off. But I meant it then and I mean it forever.” Trevor’s tears easily tear down his weak self-control and make his fists hit the ground with crushing force. “You told me I had no idea what love is, but I do, Michael, I DO!” A sudden yell made a couple of other people increase their pace and turn around in fear. “AAAARGH, I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH MIKEY IT TEARS ME APART!! I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU!”  
Only now that Trevor hunched over the grave has Michael noticed a rope, resting stuffed into one of Trevor’s coat pockets. Oh no. Oh fuck. What is he going to do? Is he really going to… “TREVOR!”  
The man in question just let tremors run through his body, hunched over the grave.  
“TREVOR! DON’T TELL ME YOU WANT TO HANG YOURSELF!”  
The only answer is the man slowly rising to his feet, chin pressed to his chest, dirty hair falling to his eyes.  
“T, PLEASE, I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!”  
Trevor turns his gaze from the tombstone to an oak and its bare branches, standing mortified in the far end of the cemetery.  
“NO, T, DON’T DO IT! I AM RIGHT HERE, PLEASE T!”  
Corners of Trevor’s mouth twitch in what could be a smile, but Michael knows deep down it is relief. With the love of his life dead and gone, the world turning its back on him, with no future whatsoever, Trevor wants to go down the path of the last resort, the path Michael dreads.  
“T, PLEASE!! I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU PLEASE DON’T!”  
An easy, tired smile settles on Trevor’s lips.   
“Today is different, Mikey. I think I really hear you now - it is as if you said you loved me and wanted me to stay. But we both know I can’t love a whisper in the wind. You are here now and in a second you are gone. As always.”  
Trevor takes a few steps, crunching of the fresh snow piercing the darkening sky.  
“I want to be there with you, to see you and feel you the way you let me when we were young and high.”  
Snow under Trevor’s feet listens in fear of what is it about to witness. Michael reaches out but fails to get hold of his friend once more. Trevor’s shoulders tense for a second before relaxing once again with a heavy sigh.  
“Please don’t try to stop me, Michael. I have nowhere else to go. I need you.”  
Trevor’s steps grow frequent as he inevitably approaches the tree and halts right in front of it, his fingers brushing over the smooth cold bark.  
“Goodbye, Mikey. For now. I’ll see you in a few.”  
Michael’s panic rises to levels he didn’t think were possible. He knows he can’t help Trevor, he knows he can’t reason with him but fuck him if he does not try to save him.  
His eyes frantically search for someone, anyone he could call and alarm. The cemetery is almost empty. The only sound is the soft swish of snowflakes and screeching of Trevor’s boots as he climbs the tree to fasten the noose. There must be someone here - Michael knows his grave is the perfect moth trap - and fuck him if he’s wrong but there is a familiar figure leaning against the metal fence. “Oh shit, it can’t be…”  
Dave Norton has just returned from his afternoon break with a cup of steaming coffee and a fresh issue of Los Santos Times when a strange touch of ice-cold air on the scruff of his neck makes him shiver. It’s not like he’s not used to long hours in freezing temperatures, but this one is oddly different. He puts down his cup and traces the back of his neck with hot fingers, but the snowflake he is searching for is nowhere to be found. “Oh well, whatever. Just a wind.” He thinks as he grabs for a cup when is suddenly tumbles over and spills all the coffee into the snow. In many years he has been an agent, Dave learned not to be surprised by a lot of things. Tax evasions, sex scandals, terrorist threats. It all shaped him in a twisted way and let him harden enough to act cold and precise in any situation he happened to be in. But this shit, it surprised the fuck out of him. He didn’t even touch the cup! There is absolutely no logical explanation of why it would bounce up and spill like that except for something grabbing it and letting go. Suddenly, the cold sensation was back and made little hair on his neck stand up in fright. Turn around. Look behind you. Turn around and look now. Those words bounce inside his head as if it was a pinball board and someone stubbornly added more and more balls to it. His head throbs, fighting the intrusion to no avail. In one bright flash of white light, a simple sentence appears right before his eyes: Turn around PLEASE!!  
Ok ok, he’s turning NOW and… oh shit…

Michael has never felt this spend and tired in his life. He can barely see the outline of his own ghostly body now as it slowly dissolves into the void. Even if he wanted, he would barely give a fuck with the scene right before his eyes.  
Dave stands below Trevor, forcing him up and back onto the branch. Trevor’s reddened face is damp with tears and his voice is hoarse when he shouts at Dave and begs him to let go, kicking a couple of times. Dave grabs for his gun and cuts the rope with a couple of shots that echo through the dark and bounce from one grave to another. Trevor falls into the abused snow below him with a loud thud and curls up in a fit of pained cry that makes Michael feel like shit. It is all his fault. The dark purple ligature mark in place of Trevor’s future “cut here” tattoo screams at him accusingly what his own mind has offered him so many times he stopped counting. He always put himself first and made people who cared about him miserable. If only he could lay beside him if only he could comfort him, if only he was given a chance to tell him how much he loved him, how much he cared, how sorry he was for things to come to this end. His final thought before he dissolves in the crisp air is of a pair of warm amber eyes looking up at him with so much love and care it makes him shiver. “Please forgive me, T.”

Ba-dum

A flash of bright white light led him back to his body this time. A roar of thunder kick-started the time. The shining diamonds of the raindrops hit the ground with a final splash before glazing the concrete with a red light covered wet coat. Up above him, Franklin curses. What a nice kid. “I forgive you,” he thinks as he braces himself for the impact. “I have the death I deserve” When Michael feels the cold touch of death on his back and draws in his lasts breath, the pure white light shines back in time with his racing heart, each flash brighter than the one before. All the pictures of his life run before his eyes - the first time he saw Trevor, the first time they kissed, the birth of Tracey, her first laugh and first uncertain steps, Jimmy’s first words, years of denial, broken promises drowned in whiskey and his recent flashbacks. He is about to die with a regret, Michael notes with a bitter taste on his palate - and that would be to make all of this right. If only he was strong enough to see past his beliefs and just let things happen as they were meant to be. If only he could turn back time, hug Franklin and let him handle things the way he wanted, call Amanda and let her go figure out her own happiness, give his children enough money to go to college and live on their own and then run into the pair of arms he sorely missed. If only he could tell him how sorry he was and how much he truly meant to him. He would hold Trevor close right there, in his ramshackle, grim-soaked trailer, stroke the summer heat out of his hair and whisper his feelings right into those beautiful ears. Yet another strike of thunder reminds him of what happened in the cemetery and the last teardrop escapes his eye and slips down his cooling cheek only to join millions of its kin on the ground as he exhaled one last time.  
I love you, M. “I love you, T.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I see you've made it to the footnote - that's so nice of you, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing and editing it :) leave a comment or kudos if you like, but I'll be happy with your mere presence - no pressure :)
> 
> If you haven't yet, go check out other works of [Michael Appreciation Week](https://www.tumblr.com/search/michaelappreciationweek) on Tumblr - the fandom is full of unbelievably talented people and I am truly humbled to be a part of it. Thank you all, I love you!!!


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